Spotify beta for Windows Phone 8 now live in the Store

Good news for those waiting on Spotify to make a return to Windows Phone (the previous version currently didn't work on Windows Phone 8) as version 2.0 of the app is now live in the Windows Phone Store bringing WP8 compatibility with it.

The interesting thing about the app is it’s still in beta, meaning this is not a completely polished and presumably bug free version. But hey, you can access your account and stream music and in the end, that’s what it’s all about. Clearly the demand for an official WP8 Spotify app is high for users and it’s great to see such a high profile app return once again to the platform.

From the app description:

“The popular music-streaming app Spotify is now available for Windows Phone 8. Spotify (Beta, Version 2.0, Free to download, subscription required to play music after trial) lets you choose the music you love, or discover new songs and artists. You can play your own playlist or browse and indulge in the playlists of your friends. Heading offline? Download and play your playlists on-the-go. With Spotify on Windows Phone 8, you don’t have to miss a beat. Get it now in the Windows Phone Store!”

Features listed of the Windows Phone 8 version include:

Search, browse & play millions of tracks.

Explore & play your friends' playlists, top artists and tracks.

Stream over WiFi or 2.5/3G - all your existing playlists are available.

Offline playlists - play your music without an internet connection.

On-the-fly sync - every track you add to a playlist appears on mobile and computer.

What's New view.

Receive music from friends via the inbox.

Starred tracks - tag all your favourites into a special list.

Seeing as the link just went live, availability within Store regions may vary a bit (we're not seeing it in the US just yet), so give it some time. You can find the link to the Store here and let us know in comments what you think of the new version.

beta....man eff this. THis is a really crappy trend Nokia started, throw stuff out there, but to get away from complaints, absolve yourself by calling it beta. App doesn't do what it did in WP7? No worries, just call it beta.

Considering that I lost this app when I upgraded to Windows Phone 8, yes. Beyond that, there doesn't seem to be any amazing new features. I'm going to try to do a trial to try out premium again. The WP7 app was terrible.

I agree, all the major platforms have released stuff in beta states anyways so I don't see why it's so bad on WP8. I'll wait and see how buggy the beta version is and how fast they fix thing sbefore complaining about it.

WP needs all the major apps in the marketplace asap. I'll take beta for now, even if it is real buggy. Although it may suck for now, at least it is there. MS should only allow dev. to use "beta" for only 3-5 months. That should be plenty of time to work out bugs. IOS and Android have so many apps, they can live without it until it is polished. Unfortunatley, WP can right now.

Microsoft has a facility for this in Marketplace. Spotify could send out links to a few registered WP users or have a site where they coudl apply for the beta and get links. BETA test it, then release a final version to the public. That's how betas work.

Whining ass babies. Beta or not it shows Windows Phone 8 is getting somewhere. If you are gonna cry like a bitch go back to iOS with the other girls. I'm glad to see something in the works. All apps have beta runs we just never see them. By allowing the user to be the beta tester it gets them more feedback and helps in the long run. I say kudos to Spotify for trying and working their way to a finalized app.

Well, this IS great, but it has no Radio support. The other mobile platforms have radio, and allow you to save songs from the radio to your playlists, even without a premium account. The WP8 version is currently premium only. Hope they add it soon.

I have the free account and I'm using it right now on my Lumia 920. Which makes it (I think) the only mobile version that works with a free account! Maybe because it's in beta, but anyway it's FANTASTIC! Been waiting for this since the end of November. :)

EDIT: errr no, it seems that I was upgraded to Premium without noticing. Wonder if they billed me or if this is another free trial. Couldn't get edit to work on my original post.
EDIT again :p. It's a two day free trial! That's funny. OK, I want it anyway. Just have to compare the sound quality with that of Xbox music. If it sounds as good I'm switching to Spotify!

I've been eagerly waiting for this app and JUST downloaded it (US). Withing seconds I was streaming in HQ, creating and downloading playlists and messaging my friends. Zero bugs or crashes thus far. Very happy to have Spotify back on my phone!
Edit:
To clarify, there's no Spotify messaging, but you can use the WP-baked social features (nice!), as well as linkage to the FB app.

Sooooo happy!
So far great app - far better than iOS version. Feels fresh clean modern design super fast and high quality audio.
Only thing I would say is a black background version would have been nice.

As a consumer, I really enjoy these paid subscription services. I feel they provide excellent value for the money. Regarding revenue for the artist..... I spend more in one year at $9.99 / month on music in one year than I did buying individual songs or cd in 10 years...

You might spend more, but the artists are making LESS than if you had bought their CD or even an mp3 off amazon. Simple fact is that these services are harmful to ALL musicians potential to make money.

People could say that Artists and Record labels have been screwing us for years. Why should you make millions of dollars for your music? I'm sorry but the money you make is fine. There is no reason in the world why musicians, actors and athletes should be making the kind of money they do. We really have a screwed up idea about whats important these days. So quit whining.

While this may be true, in today's world, concerts is where the money is at for artists. Live performances is the only thing musicians have that cannot be downloaded for free. That is where money making needs to be focused; not because it is fair but because it is the way things are today.

This conversation reminded me of an article from a fee years ago, and although I am sure the statistics are no longer accurate, it basically takes approximately 4 million plays of a song on Spotify for an artist to make the minimum wage of a US citizen. All the while, Spotify makes more off the artists music than the musician does. See for yourself. http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-ear...

You are missing my point though. The reason Spotify, XBox Music, etc. are popular now-a-days is because people don't like the idea of buying individual albums or songs anymore. To counteract piracy, this is a way for artists to at least make some money. It is just the way the market is today.

That said, if an artist depends on digital music services to pay for their living, they are in trouble. The artists who do the best are ones that tour ALL the time or are involved in other industries.

Very few artists can tour and make money. Most musicians that aspire to be more successful have no chance without a major producer and promoter to push them into the mainstream. Unfortunately, as people are spending less every year on music, the number of new artists that are given that chance decreases. It's a vicious circle. Saying "it's just the way it is" doesn't make it fair and equitable. MY POINT is that your preference to use these services directly harms the entire music industry, affecting it from top to bottom. Your point is from a consumer standpoint, which is understandable, but ignorant to the realities artists face.

Problem with your point is that you assume artist will make more money if one of two things happen: Spotify (and others) charge more and give more to the artist OR this type of distribution is stopped.

Spotify won't raise the price because they know they will see a huge fall off in subscriptions. It is like taxes. You can only raise them so much before income starts to drop. Also, companies like Spotify aren't going to change the percentage because they know they have the upper hand. People that use these services wouldn't be buying a lot of music otherwise. The people would listen to less music and getting what they do want from places like thepiratebay.

Artists have to get creative if they want to make it. Also, the small artists aren't the ones who's music is being listened to the most on these services

This is the same type of discussion that is had over torrents. Just because someone downloads a movie or song from a torrent doesn't mean they would have bought it. In most cases, people give it a try because it is free. I have purchased games, movies and music because I was able to get my hands on it for free first. Otherwise, I would have never given them a chance. All the studies done don't seem to fully understand this.

Just because I stole your bicycle, doesn't mean I was was going to buy one. Theft is theft. Artists have a right to control access to their artwork. Stealing an artists work is not justifiable under any circumstance. Don't bother trying to convince me otherwise.

I don't assume anything except that artists will continue to make less and be less successful until people understand the economic impact of their actions, and decide to support artists more directly.

Look, we could debate this endlessly, but all I want is for you, and everyone else who enjoys music, to consider giving artists a fair amount of money when you appreciate their work.

You again are missing my point: Methods of getting digital media for free or cheap aren't going to go away. Doesn't mean it is fair but it is the truth. Those who are able to adapt will survive. I know artist want to go back to the days where the only real way to get quality copies of songs were to buy them legally. It will never be that way again. People aren't going to suddenly pay more because they like the music they got. Also, artists aren't going to give the consumer the money back when the music is absolutely horrible.

Simple fact is that I really dont care if the artist make more or less.... That's a discussion between the artist and the distribution channel (ie CD or mp3 or Amazon or whatever.....) I'm not trying to be mean spirited but there are milions of talented people in the world that work just as hard as "artists" do that aren't thought to be entitled to money with each heartbeat.
Sorry, but once you join a record label, you're no longer an inpdeptent artist, your just another working guy or gal, like the rest of us.....
For Example:
An engineer is hard at work to design, fabricate or setup a process to manufacture a much needed part or component for an industrial machine. Or to create a repair procedure to get a longer life out of an expensive item..... but engineer won't feel entitled to a royality check for solving a problem.... The company may make millions of dollars of revenue from this idea or process but not the employee.

I understand your frustration. Creating something unique takes a lot of work and time. The way I see it, the current model that artists have been living off is becoming obsolete and the bottom line is that times change.

I respect your views regarding these services harming the music industry although most people I know that are musicians have a full time job and create/play their music in their spare time. The days of becoming rich solely off selling records are coming towards an end. So in order to stay competetive I would suggest other means of marketing your art. Be it through smaller gigs at unconventional places such as playing live music on public transportation (which I personally think is pretty awesome) or even out on a floating platform in the sea etc. The market/consumer as always will decide the price of a product or service. Basically supply and demand.

So whether you like it or not is immaterial, it's like a painter that's unhappy that people won't buy their art at the price they want to sell at.

"Millions of plays" may sound like a lot, until you consider the fact that people will listen to a song dozens of times. And an album has aprox 10 songs on it. So, let's say conservitively that each person listens to an album they bought aproximately 12 times. And there are 10 songs on it. That's 120 plays. So "one million plays" on spotify is about equal to 8,333 album sales. Which is pathetic all things considered. A gold album, at 1,000,000 sales, would be 120,000,000 plays on Spotify. So next time you whine about not making money on Spotify, put it into perspective.

If you're getting an error message when trying to log in, go to www.spotify.com and log in. If you have never subscribed or used a free trial of premium it will offer you a month trial. Otherwise if not you can sign up and pay for premium and immediately after you will be able to log in perfectly fine, at least on my Lumia 920 that's how it work. App works great so far, UI is superior to iOS Version in my opinion!

So far its not working for me..able to login with my premium account and it pulled in all my playlists. Then when i click on a song title to try to play that song, i see little dots going from left to right across the screen like its processing but the song never starts playing. I've tried deleting and reinstalling the app, and rebooting my phone...nada. :(

Hey serious question to anyone who uses this, since I had it on wp7 (and cancelled when I got wp8) I can't do the trial. I want to know is it more or less buggy then the wp7 version was? Want to switch back to Spotify from Xbox music so I can use it on my laptop and tablet as well as my phone, but only if/when its not as buggy.

To me looks exactly the same as on wp7. On L920 starts faster and seems to move faster between screens but songs (offline) seem to take a while to start playing, much longer than on L800.
Personally visually I like better Xbox music or Nokia music (but Xbox sux on w8, no sync, and Nokia music sound quality bad).
I guess you can't have the best of all...
Overall I was disappointed, expected a top notch, great looking new app, specially after all the wait but its the same as wp7

Ahhh..nevermind...i turned off the wifi and then it started working...turned the wifi back on and still working.. just some strange glitch. I can't tell you how happy I am to have spotify back....my windows phone is complete!! :D

It's functional but not up to par with the Android/iOS counterparts. Glad to see it though, it was the best music experience on those platforms. Tried Rdio but would freeze playback frequently. I'd like to see a fast-forward feature as well as the radio function. Spotify is still a bit clunky on WP8 but I'd rather have the beta then no app at all

Amazing. So exactly the same as for wp7. Does it come with all the bugs from the previous OS version? Spotifys lack of action, when it comes to fixing bugs in 1.1.0.0, has been really annoying. I hope they start taking WP seriously.

Download the app and it works. Started downloading for offline use, checked storage but the app seems to be placing music on phone NOT SD card. Montoring storage app size space is going up as songs are being downloaded. Hope for an update to download to SD card in the future. Lumia 810 T-mobile

I could finally download it this morning. Now I'll get to see what the hype is. Personally, Rhapsody beta has over taken Pandora for me. But lets see how this one fairs. Might be a good app to have just the same.